Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
FIONA
Y ou’re everything to me, Fiona. And you’re mine.
I wake hearing Connor’s voice in my head and turn on my side to find him asleep on the chair in the corner. Holy shit, what a dream. This flare and the stress of the past week must be muddling my thinking. It’s too soon for me to be experiencing Stockholm syndrome, so why is my brain producing stories of my captor helping me. Of him holding me. Of him wanting me.
Stupid fucking brain.
For longer than I should, I watch him sleep, and a rush of longing comes over me. Longing for what we had in my dream. His arms. His words. His kiss. I touch my lips.
Flipping over, I turn away from him and give myself a stern talking-to. Fiona, you’re not making any sense right now. Think about something else. Think about your goddamned fiancé!
That pulls my thoughts up short. I stare at the engagement ring on my nightstand. Roman’s ring was exactly as Connor described it. Does it share the Latin inscription left at the site of Lucy Vale’s murder? And he shot at me. Oh my God, I can’t even believe I’m considering this, but it’s more than possible… it almost feels likely… that Roman is what Connor says he is, a member of a secret society called the Saint’s Order, a society that could be responsible for Lucy Vale’s murder. But if it’s true, how did I miss the signs?
I wanted to believe Roman was everything I needed him to be. Now I have to face the truth.
Believing what my captor tells me about Roman though doesn’t make Connor someone I can trust. He isn’t human. He’s a dragon, whatever that means. A man with wings. Aside from that, I don’t know anything about the circumstances that brought us to this point. I don’t know the nature of the war between the dragons and the Order, who’s right or who’s wrong, or what motivations might be at play. Furthermore, I don’t immediately care. All I care about is getting free of this place and going home. I can tell both men to go to hell once I get there.
And you can finally write my story.
My entire body lights up at the sound of Alex’s voice. She appears in my imagination, grabbing her purse off the bar, the drive with the photos from her Milk Cult informant safely inside. She’s speaking to me again! Finally.
I need to get back to the motel and pop this into my laptop before I can take the next steps. Write it, Fiona! she orders in her MP voice.
I feel her words like a slap across my face and roll onto my back again, my eyes flipping open with a wave of energy I haven’t felt in days.
I know what happens next. I’m ready to write again.
The ceiling here is made of knotty wood. One of the knots looks like a face. A face that’s laughing at me. I’m a prisoner in a cabin in the middle of… who knows where. It’s—I glance at the clock—five a.m. I have nothing to write with. No laptop. No pen or paper. For the first time in over a year, my writer’s block is gone, and I’m in the only situation in the world where I can’t do anything about it.
Clunk . I hear the footrest on the recliner fold down and quickly shut my eyes again, pretending I’m asleep. I don’t think I can face Connor after that dream. Just the cucumber-and-mint scent of him causes something low in my belly to flutter. Footsteps cross the room, and then the door opens and closes again. He’s gone.
Opening my eyes, I try to sit up in bed, expecting my body to hurt as it has the past few days, expecting to have to pay for yesterday’s walk and all the emotional currency I’ve spent since I’ve been here. Among people with disorders like mine, there’s a metaphor called spoon theory to describe our limited energy resources. I only have so many spoons in a day, and simple things like eating or self-care use up many of them. Bottom line is, I should be short on spoons after everything that’s happened. But I don’t hurt. I feel better. A lot better. Cautiously, I draw my legs up and over the side of the bed. So much better. I’ve never recovered from a flare this quickly and thoroughly, even after days of bed rest. What the hell?
I only hope it’s not a fluke.
I hobble to the bathroom, noticing my balance is better and I can stand up straighter than before. I can’t resist the lure of the shower. My hair is still caked with hairspray, and I know the heat will further loosen up my body after my being in bed for so long. A groan of pleasure escapes me as I step into the spray and pull the curtain closed, pleasantly surprised to see some high-end shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in the shower rack. I help myself, lathering my hair with an impossible level of energy. I don’t just feel better; I feel good!
I’m in the middle of rinsing my hair when I hear the door open. My breath catches and I freeze. Images of the Viking drawing back the curtain and stepping into the spray fill my head, and things low within me clench hungrily at the idea. I touch my lips again, thinking about the dream. The dream but I’m healthy. The dream but we kiss and then?—
He clears his throat. “Just leaving some fresh clothes for you on the counter.” His voice sounds strained.
“Uh, thanks.” I run a hand over my breast, my wet skin smooth as silk beneath my palm. My nipples have formed hard peaks at the sound of his voice. What the fuck? It’s like the tone is caressing me from the inside, the perfect vibration to pluck something needy strung tight within me. I lean the back of my head against the shower wall and trace where I feel the vibration, along the space between my breasts, down my stomach, under my navel, to where it ends between my legs. God, that voice. That smell. Rivulets of pleasure tracing down my skin become sensual torture.
“Oh, and I’ve left something else for you on the, uh… bed.” His voice comes again, this time lower, grittier, more breathless.
“Okay.” I concentrate on controlling my own breath, the ache between my legs growing more intense. I rub circles across my clit to ease the throb.
“If you see another man in the cottage today, it’s just my employee, Zaire. He’s going to be joining us for a while.”
“All right,” I choke out as if every word coming from his lips isn’t stoking a fire deep within me. Electricity zaps through my veins at the thought that nothing but a shower curtain stands between me and the man from my dreams. I arch my back, closing my eyes and absorbing the sensation his voice releases in me. The wetness between my legs is from more than just the shower. I picture his hand where my hand is, his tongue.
I hear the door open like he’s leaving. “Fiona…” His rough, growly voice travels up my spine, along my throat.
“Yeah?” I try not to sound breathless, but it’s all I can do not to get myself off right here, right now.
“I’m trying my best to keep my hands to myself out of deference to you and your situation, but I can smell your arousal, and if you keep teasing me, I’m going to bury myself in you so deep you’ll forget we were ever two separate people.”
I yank my hand from between my legs. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! ”
His low laugh rumbles from the room and the door closes behind him.
Could he actually smell my arousal? Shit, I guess he is a dragon. My cheeks blaze with embarrassment even as my nether regions throb with unmet need.
I finish showering, angry and sexually frustrated, and pull back the curtain to reach for a towel. A stack of clothes and toiletries waits for me near the sink. I check the labels. My size. The pair of wide-leg jeans is buttery soft and stretchy and goes perfectly with the lightweight long-sleeved gray sweater he’s left me. He even bought me underwear and a matching bra. A man like him, especially one who’s shown some attraction to me, might have picked something for his pleasure. Black lace, flimsy, with wires. Maybe a thong. But this is sporty, simple, and comfortable. There’s also some makeup, hair-care items, and the complete skin-care line of an expensive brand I only sometimes splurge on because the cream alone is three hundred dollars.
I take a deep breath. He abducted you, Fiona . He’s a criminal and possibly insane. An alien creature. Stop crushing on him ! With a huff, I decide then and there to end this nonsense of fantasizing about the dragon. Yes, he’s hot and the first man to make me feel anything below the waist since the accident, but he’s a criminal, a kidnapper, a wedding ruiner.
Leisurely, I make use of all the items and emerge from the bathroom feeling like a new person, resolved to do what I have to do to get out of here.
Which brings up an even bigger question. It’s been five days since I was taken. Why hasn’t Roman moved heaven and earth to get me back? Does he even know I was ill? Unless he has and Connor hasn’t told me for some reason.
Connor, my kidnapper, whom I’m picturing in my dreams and when I touch myself in the shower. God, this is fucked up.
I leave the bathroom and pull up short when I see an Apple Store bag on the bed. I rush across the room to rifle through it. What. The. Hell? It contains a new MacBook Air and a selection of notebooks, pens, highlighters, and sticky tabs in various colors. I pull the laptop box out and carry it to the desk by the window, ripping it open. My hands shake as I plug it in and go through the steps to get it up and running. The Wi-Fi is called DragonsLair5G, but of course I don’t have the password. But I don’t need it. The unit is already set up for me, fully charged and preloaded with word-processing software. I’ll be starting from scratch on Milkmaid anyway. Nothing I’ve written so far was worth saving.
I sit down at the desk and open a blank Word file.
Alex appears in my head in her military police uniform. She salutes me. Let’s go, Ms. Morrow. The Milk Cult isn’t going to stop itself .
My fingers hit the keyboard and fly.
Chapter after chapter flows out of me. It’s like a river of words has been dammed up in my brain for twelve months and finally, finally that dam has burst. The story behind Milkmaid is crystal clear to me now. After the thirteen-year-old daughter of a fellow investigator from her stint as an MP goes missing, Alex traces a chemical in the girl’s best friend’s blood back to a rave where other girls were similarly drugged. Alex poses as a drug seeker at the same party the following weekend and witnesses a man spray something on a young woman’s arm. The drug makes the woman extremely compliant, and Alex has no trouble getting her out of there and to the lab of close friend and former lover Henrik Angel. Henrik’s people isolate the substance on her arm, and after some highly illegal research, identify it as a military bioweapon called M1LK, an abbreviation for the chemical compounds used in the formula. Nicknamed Milk, the chalky white chemical produces an instant high. With its other attributes, it’s a nearly perfect date-rape drug. Armed with that knowledge, Alex returns to the rave and follows the man she saw using the drug. She links him to a secret society called the Milk Cult.
When my hands start to cramp, I take a break and check my word count. It’s one p.m. I’ve written eleven thousand words. I jump from the chair and dance around the room. It’s the most I’ve ever written in four hours. Hell, the most I’ve ever written in a day. My stomach growls and my mouth is dry as a stone, but Alex is back, baby. Alex. Is. Back.
I stop spinning when I notice the door is open. Has it been open the entire time? No, I don’t think so. Someone’s been in here. Shit, I must have been too engrossed in the story to notice.
My stomach growls again, and I go in search of food. And if I’m being honest with myself, I wouldn’t mind seeing Connor either. I should loathe him. I should fear him. But I find him strangely compelling and undeniably interesting, plus I should say thank you for the laptop .
I do a cursory check of the hallway and then walk toward the back of the house where I spot a sunroom with a wall of windows. My eyes catch on Connor in the backyard. Oh hell do they catch. In the light of a crisp spring day, he’s shirtless, his jeans riding low on his hips, with pine trees and snowcapped mountains framing him like some sort of majestic work of art. He’s chopping wood. I watch him set up another log, raise the axe over his shoulder and bring it down in a perfect arc, splitting the piece in a single blow. I sigh, noticing that tendrils of steam are curling off his skin. He’s sweating. My eye moves to the snow on the trees. It can’t be more than forty degrees out there, and he’s sweating.
“You must be Fiona.”
I jump and twirl around to find a middle-aged Indian man with a short beard standing behind me.
He smiles. “I’m sorry to startle you. Would you like something to eat? I came into your room to offer earlier, but Connor told me not to disturb you if you were writing.”
“Oh yes.” I’m starving. So that’s why my door was open.
His gaze assesses me quickly. “I’m relieved to see everything fits. Connor was very specific, but one never knows with women’s clothing.”
“You bought this for me? And the other things?” The man looks familiar, but I can’t quite place who he reminds me of.
He laughs. “No. Connor ordered them. I simply picked them up on my way here. I’m Zaire. I work for Connor. ”
He extends his hand and we shake. When he smiles, I realize why he looks familiar. “Zaire. You are the Zaire. The reclusive artist Zaire. My friend Vivian owns one of your paintings— Rhapsody in Red . Absolutely gorgeous.”
A blush stains his cheeks, and he has to look away. “You flatter me. I remember that painting. It was a joy to complete.”
“But that painting…” Cost her thousands of dollars , I finish in my head. “Why are you working for Connor when you’re you ?”
He draws a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “Ahhh, it’s my privilege to serve him, but um, I believe it would be better if you spoke to him directly about our arrangement.” He gestures toward the hall. “He’ll be in soon. Please. Join me in the kitchen. I’ll fix you something.”
With one more glance over my shoulder at the wood-chopping porn happening beyond the windows, I follow Zaire into the kitchen where he seats me at a charming nook. He starts pulling things out of the warmer and setting them on the table. It’s more food than a family of four could eat. My stomach growls again, and I don’t refuse when he serves me a plate that looks like something from a magazine.
“Duck breast with pomegranate sauce, red potatoes, green beans,” he announces. “Connor took a chance that you like duck, but he left something else?—”
“I love it!” The bite I place on my tongue is a medley of perfectly seasoned duck meat with hints of a sweet pomegranate sauce that complements the flavor flawlessly. It’s so good I moan.
Zaire laughs. “It is his specialty. He’ll be glad to hear you like it.”
I can’t help but make more yummy sounds as I take another bite and then sip the coffee Zaire slid in front of me. “This is not what I was expecting when I learned I was being held hostage.”
The man’s eyebrows shoot skyward. “He’s holding you hostage?”
Before I can answer him, the door opens and I do a double take as a German shepherd the size of a small horse charges toward me.